


The Pale Orc

by ATMachine (orphan_account)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 14:37:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9329327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ATMachine
Summary: In Beleriand, the forest at night holds scarier things than dragons.





	

The Eldar do not venture into the woods of Gwerth-i-Cuina.

It is haunted, they say: by devils and worse than devils. Wolves and bats and hellhounds, the spawn of Morgoth’s pits beneath Thangorodrim. The Eldar fear and abhor these creatures, the sight of which has been enough to drive some of them mad.

But worst of all, the Eldar say, is the creature known as the Pale Orc.

She is indeed loathsome to behold. Pallid as white milk, with a head devoid of hair, she roams the haunted forests with a limping gait, clad in only a tattered and faded loincloth. Her ears have Elven shape, for Morgoth bred the Orcs out of Elves long ago, but the tip of one is lacking. One of her eyes is blind, the other missing from its socket. A gauntlet of crudely forged iron takes the place of her severed right hand; her left breast too was cut off long ago, and a massive burn scar marks the wound. She never speaks a word in any proper tongue. Yet none doubt her allegiance to Morgoth, for she bears his sigil branded upon her forehead, its colors inverted yet its shape made plain: a black sun upon a black field.

Terrible she is and ruthless to those who in a moment of ill-fortune stumble on her in the moonlight. Entire parties of Eldarin hunters have vanished, leaving no trace besides bloodstains on the grass. Those few who have survived her onslaught did so by casting down their eyes, playing dead upon the ground. Always she goes accompanied by her chief servant, a Man of golden hair and beard, with swift sword and taciturn tongue. The Pale Orc rules the forest of Gwerth-i-Cuina as her personal kingdom.

She is the worst of Morgoth’s servants, saving only Sauron, the Wise among the Eldar deem. Few doubt that in creating her, Bauglir’s program of breeding monstrous mockeries of the Elves reached its apogee.

But even the very Wise cannot see all ends.

Once, long ago, the Pale Orc had a brother.

She danced beneath the trees while her brother played his pipes, and they were blithe and blissful in their father’s kingdom, where time flowed as slowly as the age-long growth of the crystals on the walls of his cavernous palace, deep beneath the green hills of Middle-earth.

Until the day the Man with golden hair surprised her as she danced amid the trees, and everything changed.

Her head is bald: she cut off her hair to make a rope and escape the tree-loft where her father prisoned her, knowing it would never grow back. Yet the tree was mighty with age, and her rope not long enough, so that she had to jump down to the earth, and broke her leg doing so.

The tip of her right ear is gone: cut off by Curufin, son of Feanor, to teach her submission, when he and Celegorm held her in the dungeons of Nargothrond with Orodreth’s connivance; raping her every night, and writing letters in the morning to her father, asking in fair and flowery terms for her hand. Celebrimbor and Ereinion, the Gil-galad, were born of their dark deeds. She gave birth in the wilderness, and afterwards sent the babes back to their fathers in Nargothrond, in the care of a shepherd.

Her eye is blind, and her right hand is missing: she gave up the sight of her eye, and the strength of her hand, that she might redeem her lover out of the cold clutches of Mandos.

Her other eye is gone from its socket, and her voice silenced: wounds given by Daeron her brother, who fell in with the Dwarves of Nogrod, and took the name Ufedhin, and betrayed her father’s kingdom.

She gave them battle at the Ford of Gelion on learning of Thingol’s death, but was felled by an arrow to the eye, and carried off by her brother’s cohorts. Her lover rescued her; yet in malice Daeron crushed her windpipe with his mailed fist ere he died. Beren of the golden hair cut open her throat with his knife heated in torch-fire, at once giving her life-breath and stealing away her voice.

Her left breast too is missing: beneath the scars, where once her heart rested in her body, is a fiery radiant stone, one of the three Silmarils crafted by Feanor in the light of the Two Trees. For the beat of her heart was the third and greatest part of Mandos’ ransom for her beloved Beren.

But Luthien Tinuviel is a canny negotiator, and she was not about to give up the life of her body along with the beating of her heart.

And her forehead bears the sigil of Morgoth, branded with its colors inverted into her living flesh: she let the Dark Lord put his mark on her forehead, as she let him put his seed in her body, that she might beguile him and steal the Silmarils from his iron crown. Thus was born Elwing the fair, and her brother Dior who inherited Thingol’s throne; and thus was achieved the great Quest set in motion by her father’s rash demand.

The stories of the Wise have it wrong. Luthien and Beren stole _two_ Silmarils from the Iron Crown of the tyrant of Thangorodrim.

Yet the radiance of the other Silmaril, hanging upon Luthien’s naked breast, is such that few can look at it and know it for what it is. Most simply ignore it; some say it is the hellish fire of her stomach, issuing from her throat like the breath of a dragon.

The Eldar do not venture into the woods of Gwerth-i-Cuina, for fear of the Pale Orc. They call it “the Land of the Living Dead,” as those who walk under the shadow of its branches often do not return.

But even the very Wise do not see all ends. And of the Eldarin hunting parties, only those who cast down their eyes have ever told their tale.


End file.
